This week, filming began on the second season of Amazon’s The Wheel of Time—before we even have a release date or trailer for the first season. (At least there hopefully won’t be a long wait between seasons?) Various hints and suggestions about season two have been dropping since November 2019, when showrunner Rafe Judkins posted a photo of the second-season writers’ room. So what all do we know so far?
Filming:
The Wheel of Time was officially renewed for a second season in May 2021, just as the first season finished filming.
In early July, Judkins filmed a brief message for attendees of JordanCon, saying he wished he could be there—but he was in Prague, getting started on season two.
The second season started officially shooting on July 19, 2021:
And the wheel keeps weaving… Filming for Season 2 of our series kicks off today! #TheWheelofTime pic.twitter.com/Dpj26qabMW
— The Wheel Of Time (@TheWheelOfTime) July 19, 2021
Directors:
The slate lists the director as Thomas Napper, who is a new addition to the WOT directors’ list. Napper has worked as a second unit director on a several films, including Aladdin and Into the Woods, and directed the 2017 boxing film Jawbone. The sharp-eyed fans at WOTSeries have noted a couple of other potential season-two directors: David Lowery (The Green Knight), whose name appeared on the website of a company working on the production; and Sanaa Hamri (Empire), who shared the recent logo reveal on Instagram.
Episodes:
In May, Judkins shared an image of season two’s first episode script on Instagram, showing the title, “A Taste of Solitude.” While all of the first season’s episode titles are taken from chapter titles in the books themselves, “A Taste of Solitude” is a notable departure. It may mean that, as the show goes on, we’ll be less able to predict where the story is headed based on the titles. Update: It IS a chapter title…from wayyy out in Book 6, Lord of Chaos. There’s a bit of discussion in that chapter about the cyclical nature of the Wheel of Time, but otherwise the title would seem to have been chosen to reflect how isolated Rand is feeling at the beginning of Book 2, The Great Hunt.
Judkins also did an Instagram Q&A in May to celebrate wrapping the first season, and while it was mostly about season one, there were two future tidbits: The writers had been working on the second season all year, and “a bunch of great scripts” were ready to be filmed.
Characters:
The character who’s not in season one that Judkins is most excited about seeing in the second season has a name that starts with El. (Most likely Elaida Sedai, but possibly Elayne Trakand since the latter was conspicuously absent from season one cast announcements.)
What we don’t know anything about is casting. Who will play Lanfear? Should we expect a major announcement here? (Perhaps an actor with the same renown as Rosamund Pike?) And perhaps the biggest question of all: How will the show tackle the Seanchan?
Judkins is on a Comic-Con@Home panel this Friday, July 23rd, at 2 pm Eastern/11 am Pacific, but the panel isn’t just about The Wheel of Time; it’s a general Amazon panel featuring the showrunners of some of their new and upcoming shows. It seems unlikely Judkins would choose that moment to reveal anything major—but you never know.
The Wheel of Time is set to premiere on Amazon Prime in 2021.
